Conor Oberst, Upstate Concert Hall July 2017
When I arrived to the venue, I ran into my friend Julie and her boyfriend. They got very close to the stage and invited me to join them. First, however, I sat way in the back and had a couple PBRs while listening to the opening band, Hop Along.
When it was almost time for Conor to go on, I meandered my way through the crowd toward the stage in search of Julie and her boyfriend. I didn't find them at first, but landed a pretty decent vantage point behind only two rows of people. Just before Conor came one, I saw Julie and waved. I wasn't sure if I could get over to her and her boyfriend as I would have had to squeeze between too many people. I decided against popping so many personal bubbles including my own. Plus, a guy next to me struck up a conversation. I can't remember his name, but he said that he hoped that Conor would play Four Winds. I did too.
Conor opened with Afterthought, which is a fantastic song on his new album "Salutations." The chorus is a great sing-a-long:
"It isn't as though we get what we want
no matter how hard or long we have fought
and my happiness is a mere afterthought
when I'm with her, I keep it in mind
the she leaves and I've run out of time."
And then he played Four Winds, which is from the album "Cassadaga" and includes an awesome fiddle riff/solo.
I don't remember every song that he played or the exact order, but at some point he played most of my favorites from the new album: Till St. Dymphna Kicks Us Out, Overdue, Too Late to Fixate, A Little Uncanny, Salutations, and Napalm.
A lot of Conor's songs are mellow or down tempo, which don't necessarily add to the concert experience, but standing in a room full of people singing along to melodic songs about depression, pills, and suicide is actually quite an uplifting experience. You mean, I'm not the only one who feels this way sometimes? Cool.
Upstate Concert Hall is a smallish club that's in a former strip mall in Clifton Park. It's not a terrible place to see concerts. The last concert I saw there was the Wallflowers around ten years ago. There's a blog entry about it somewhere here.
Conor played some songs from his Bright Eyes days (Four Winds, for example), some songs from his Mystic Valley Band days (Cape Canaveral, which -- despite being a down tempo song -- sounded awesome live), and some songs from "Upside Down Mountain" (Time Forgot, Artifact), which is like three years old at this point.
Some songs that he didn't play that I had hoped he would play were: Sausalito, Souled Out!!!, Hundreds of Ways, and Perfect Sonnet (from wayyyy back. I wouldn't expect him to play it as he is much less emo now than he was when he wrote that song; but, it's one of the songs that turned me on to him as the lyrics are so amazing).
Before the encore, Conor played A Little Uncanny, which is the single off the new album. Cool harmonica riff. Great song.
For the encore, he had the lead singer from Hop Along join him on a Neil Young cover (I don't remember the song though...) and he ended the night with Napalm (also from the new album), which is probably the one song that I really wanted to hear live, because it really rocks. And, live, it really rocked. It was a great end to the night.
As I left the venue, I thought to myself, "Do I still hang out afterwards to try to meet the band?" Because I used to do that a lot... I think I'm too old to do that now... I hopped in my car and turned on my Conor Oberst playlist. As I was leaving, I took a wrong turn and ended up on Plaid Place, which intersects with Lace Lane... I wish I had taken a picture of the street sign... Now, I really want to write a song about the intersection of Plaid and Lace...